Chapter 7
7
MADDIE
M y face is scrunched up in contemplation as I stand in front of my favorite food truck on campus, pondering the vast menu displayed next to the order window.
I’m in one of the worst positions anyone can be in. I’m starving but have no idea what I want to eat.
My eyes scan some of my favorite selections … but I’m just not in the mood for any of them. Ugh, is there any pain worse than crippling indecision while hunger gnaws at your stomach?
“Hmm,” I muse out loud to myself, “the nachos sound good, but I never finish more than half the portion …”
“Let’s split it, then.”
I give a little start at the unexpected intrusion into my hunger-mad musing. Rhys steps next to me, shoulder to shoulder, and my senses fill with his presence. I turn to see him looking up at the menu. I also see how utterly heart-stopping the sharp cut of his jaw looks at a profile view.
“Chicken nachos with extra cheese and jalapeno,” he says, and suddenly that’s exactly what I’m in the mood for. “You in?”
“Is half a portion going to be enough for you? I mean, I’ve seen you eat before.” The quantity of food I’ve observed Rhys and my brother polish off often defies belief. But I guess those piles of muscle don’t come from nowhere.
“I have practice in a couple hours,” Rhys answers. “Not having too much in my stomach is probably wise.”
“Fair enough,” I answer with a laugh. I place the order and then slide open the plastic case underneath the order window to grab some drinks. “Peach iced tea for you, too?” I ask Rhys.
He winks. “You know me too well.”
Those words sound just a little raspier than I expect. I don’t know why such a simple gesture and such a simple answer has me feeling like there’s a cluster of butterflies gathering in my chest.
I reach into my pocket for my wallet, but Rhys is already handing a twenty-dollar bill to the guy behind the counter.
“Hey!” I cry. “I was gonna pay.”
I know that, unfortunately, money is a lot tighter for Rhys than it is for me. Now, in a couple years that’ll change when he’s signed to a giant pro hockey contract and I’m trying to find a way to make a living as an artist, but for now it’s the truth.
“Nah, I got it this time,” he drawls as he takes his change and drops the coins and a one-dollar bill into the tip jar. “You can pay next time we eat together.”
I narrow my eyes at him. “You always say that and then never let me.”
With a wry grin, he just shrugs. We walk over to one of the picnic tables set up near the food trucks and wait for our order to be called.
“By the way,” I begin, “Jasmine said she never let you into our room to leave that album. So how the hell did you get in?”
His eyebrows wiggle. “You expect a magician to reveal his secrets?”
As his tawny eyes twinkle mischievously, I roll my own. “Jasmine probably just forgot to lock the door.”
“Nope, it was locked,” Rhys retorts in a taunting singsong.
“Then how—whatever.” He’s just messing with me. Right?
The food truck calls our order, and Rhys retrieves it. For the next several minutes, our conversation halts as we dig into the nachos.
Yeah, these are exactly what I was in the mood for. The nachos are crispy and salty, the chicken is tender, the cheese is gooey, and the jalapenos add just the right kick.
“Regretting your choice to split one order?” I joke to Rhys as he’s already done his portion before I’m even halfway through mine.
Hunger gleams in his eyes as he looks at my half of the plate. “Right now, yeah. But when I’m not throwing up after practice, I’ll be thankful for my wisdom.”
I scoop up another nacho while Rhys twists open his peach tea, a favorite flavor we’ve shared for years, and takes a big swig.
“So, how was your first week as an art major?” he asks.
I swallow my mouthful of food, and it’s an extra hard one because I’m also swallowing down the disappointment over the true answer to that question.
The classes have been fine. Better than fine. I’m enjoying the material a lot. But I still haven’t gotten over the cold feet that my social anxiety gives me and taken even the first step toward making friends in my department.
“Pretty good,” I answer. I don’t count it as a fib, because the classes themselves really have been going well.
The set of Rhys’s jaw gets a touch more rigid. “Hm,” is the skeptical sound that rumbles from his throat.
I pop another cheese-and-chicken-covered nacho into my mouth, hoping to just move past the topic, but Rhys is drilling me with his I see right through your bullshit gaze. He doesn’t lift the weight of those piercing amber eyes off me for a second, not even to blink.
I swallow. “What?”
“Don’t you pretty good me, Maddie Larsen.” A tightness twists in my stomach at the way he uses my first and last name. “You think I can’t tell when you’re bullshitting me?”
“They are going pretty good!” I protest.
“ But ,” Rhys leads.
I square my shoulders to defend myself, but they immediately roll and sink. Who am I kidding? All my ability to fib to Rhys Callahan is used up by the effort it takes to make sure he doesn’t suspect that I think of him as anything other than a good friend. Beyond that, I’ve never been able to hide anything from him.
“Well, I just kind of hoped I’d make more friends with my art classmates than I have so far.”
The set of Rhys’s jaw becomes harder. His brow lowers. “Why? Are they being jerks to you?”
The way Rhys immediately launches into protective mode makes me laugh. It also makes me feel more tingly lower in my core than I’d care to admit.
“No, nothing like that,” I say quickly. “Just … you know.” I sigh. “You know me, it’s hard for me to talk to people I don’t know sometimes. Especially since I’m not taking the beginner classes. Most of my classmates have already been art majors for a year or more, and it’s like everyone else knows everyone else already. I feel like the odd girl out.”
The edges of my lips curve to a frown. Suddenly, it feels like there’s an insurmountable barrier between me and being able to have the kind of semester I want. It feels like I’ve already ruined my college experience thanks to the way last year turned out, and there’s nothing I can do to turn it around.
My spirits are quickly sinking into a quicksand of depression, when Rhys pulls my attention back to him by snapping his figures.
His eyes bore into mine. “Staring contest,” he solemnly pronounces.
I roll my eyes, but just those two words are enough to feel like there’s a hand pulling my heart up from the floor it just sank to. “Rhys …” I begin to protest, but he cuts me off.
“Right now.” He slaps his hand against the surface of the picnic table with resolution. “Staring contest. Let’s go.”
For years, Rhys has cheered me up by challenging me to staring contests. It really shouldn’t work as well as it does.
There’s something about the way his expression becomes so intense, his features pulling sharp enough to cut glass, his eyes flashing with absurd concentration as his brow settles low above them, over a freaking staring contest that it makes me crack up every time.
Sure enough, it’s the same story today. I’m trying to hold back a quivering smile the second I pull my eyelids back and lock my gaze with his. The competitive intensity on his frozen-still face has my jaw shaking as I try to bite back laughter.
I don’t make it to five seconds. My defenses crumble and peals of laughter burst unbidden from my lips. A wave of endorphins washes over me, chasing away the sad feeling that had just gripped me.
“Now,” he begins, “about being the odd girl out. Well, I won’t dispute the odd part …”
I scoff, followed by balling up a napkin and throwing it playfully at Rhys’s face. But with his damn hockey reflexes, he swats it away effortlessly.
“It’s your first week,” he says, “it’s going to take some time to adjust. I know you can be hard on yourself when things aren’t going as well as you hoped they would, and you know I can get the same way.”
I nod as I chew on another nacho. It’s an aspect of both our personalities we’ve talked about a lot and helped each other out with a lot over the years.
“So give yourself some grace, and realize that even if you’re disappointed in how the first week went, it’s only the first week. You have a whole semester to meet people, and it’s going to happen. I know it is. Here, I have an idea. Do you have any homework or anything due next week?”
“Yeah,” I answer. “For my Figure Drawing class, we have a set of sketches due on Wednesday.”
“And you have a Monday session before that?”
I nod.
“Perfect,” Rhys says. “Have one or two of your sketches finished by Monday. Ask one of the students who sit next to you or behind you or whatever if they can take a glance at them and let you know if they’re any good. Tell them you’ve just changed your major and never had a college art class before, and you just want a knowledgeable outside opinion before you turn in your first official art assignment. Pick someone who looks friendly. Use it as an icebreaker.”
My eyebrows tick up. That’s not a bad idea.
“Maybe I’ll try that,” I say. I know I’ll be nervous to do even that, and I’ll have to summon some courage to go through with it … but it’s doable. It’ll take no more courage than the amount that I’ve summoned plenty of times in my life to do things that made me nervous at first.
I finish my half of the nachos. I grab the empty container and twist around to toss it into the trash can behind me. At the same time, I reach for one of the napkins we have piled on the side of the table—and when I do, a bolt of white-hold electricity rushes through me.
I wasn’t prepared for my hand to brush against Rhys’s as he reaches for the napkins at the same time.
I’ve touched Rhys before. Obviously. Hugs, playful slaps to the back, hand-fives, you name it. But for some reason, this unexpected contact that I was totally unprepared for sends an intense thrill lacing through my bloodstream.
Instantly, sparks sizzle up and down my back, my nipples pinch into firm nubs underneath my shirt, and my thighs clench while a tender ache pangs between them.
The heat in my face tells me that my cheeks must be red as ripe apples when I turn back to face Rhys.
He, on the other hand, looks totally normal.
And why wouldn’t he? An incidental brush of the hands with a girl you just consider a friend? A girl you probably think of as basically a sister given how you grew up together? To him, it was nothing.
To me? My heart rate hasn’t come close to settling down when we get up from the bench to walk towards our next classes.
My stomach still feels like a pool of hot liquid when we reach the end of the block. His next class is one way, and mine is another.
“I’m sure I’ll be seeing you around,” I joke before we part.
He winks at me, an innocent motion that gives me a feeling of wings flapping in my belly. “More than likely.”
When I sit down in my next class, my hand is still tingling.